It feels like 27°F (- 2 °C). That’s what I woke up to this morning, looking at the weather on my phone. As meteorological autumn wraps up its final days, the record warmth we’ve been experiencing in Michigan is over as we prepare for another seasonal transition. While our dogs seem particularly excited for the colder weather, as huskies normally are, this human takes more time to acclimate. Sometimes I get there if there is some ice formation on the lakes, but it remains to be seen if we will have another light year.

Photographically, I’ve spent most of my time behind the lens in our backyard this autumn. It is a refuge where we can have some say in its destiny, at least for a little while. Despite the familiarity, there always seem to be little new scenes to seek out and explore. I’ll even look for little things when I don’t have my camera—my alternative to sniffing out every animal that may have walked through overnight. As always, making photos raises a lot of questions.

Everything in these photos is on a journey, and you wonder how they will ultimately be utilized as these bits of “debris” break down. How much will go to feeding various soil organisms? How much will serve as cover through the winter months? How much will end up returning to the very tree that dropped them? What prompted modern humans to refer to this as “yard waste?” when so many cultural and religious symbols of leaves represent so much more?

A forest knows the answers to these questions, though. Nothing here is wasted. But modern human society has largely lost the ability to listen to the forest’s messages, now drowned out by the annoying noise of leaf blowers.

Then I wonder, what made me photograph this particular leaf pile vs. the one over there? There are likely a lot of subconscious preferences coming through that I have yet to answer. Maybe it is just the particular aspects of the graphical elements in the scene, the color combinations, all sorts of things that I often can’t place my finger on. So I shrug and bin it to “intuition.”

Then I thought, “Why bog yourself down with so many questions?” Don’t overthink it. You’ve already spent the time looking and attempting to see. Let the photo be what it is.

A photo of one point in time of a Leaf’s Journey and some serendipitous friends along the way, offended by the label of “waste.”